Did You See Kelly Slater’s FS 7?

by The Editors on October 17, 2014

Yes, it’s amazing. And huge. And smooth. And progressive. But leave it to surfers to call Kelly Slater’s latest air spin a 540.

Andy Adams October 21, 2014 at 9:41 am: Wrong. A wave is like a 1/4 pipe. Not a wall on a half pipe. That’s snowboarders trying to be surfers, applying their rules. If you did a 540 skating a quarterpipe then rolled out into the flats switch, then spun around the final 180 blind and told your friends you did a 720, they’d laugh you out of town. You guys spend to much time listening to Todd Richards, the biggest wannabe surfer/ex-pro snowboarder from the East Coast-now-living-in-Encinitas (aka Surf Industry South) on the planet. Ask Chris Miller or Christian Fletcher if they think it’s a 720.
The Editors October 21, 2014 at 10:57 am: You’re just proving our point about surfers, but since you asked, here’s the deal: Kelly left the wave going up the face of the wave. He completed two rotations (720) and landed fakie (that means fins first). No one really cares about the revert, nor are they counting it in the 7.
Andy Adams October 27, 2014 at 12:44 pm: Leave it to a snowboarder to come back with that response, you guys are always patting yourselves on the back for turning up and down the wall of a half pipe and calling it a 180. Not to mention it’s coming from the guys who back in your snowboard mag days where calling frontside airs “frontside Indys?” While I’ll give you that Slater does come back in fakie not switch (“fakie” in surfing is a dubious term, there’s fins on one end, remember?), then by your logic wouldn’t it be a 720 reverse or even a 900? Not to mention the inverted rotation, should we then call it an off-axis or, dare I say, “corked” 900? Now you’re arbitrarily not counting the reverse and claiming no one cares? So all those Kolohe Andino and John Florence f/s air hucks to flat aren’t “air reverses?” Snowboarding and its naming conventions, it’s all a downward spiral of gibberish. Stick to calling snowboarding tricks Boardistan, leave surfing to those who know what they’re talking about. I’m interested to hear what Two John thinks it is, aren’t you?
The Editors October 27, 2014 at 2:41 pm: Skateboarders and snowboarders have been doing 720s for decades. There is an established naming convention for spin tricks and it should be followed.

Just so you know, while we’ve been guilty of calling more tricks wrong than most, no one here ever called a frontside air a “frontside Indy” because there is no such thing.

Please call Kelly’s FS 7 whatever you want. And yes, we would like to hear what Two John wants to call this. Hopefully, he won’t be wrong, too!

Oh, and someone at theInertia has finally figured it out: http://www.theinertia.com/surf/why-kelly-slaters-air-was-a-720-not-a-540/